Overall Program Description

Network analytics are fast becoming an essential competency for organizations that want to understand how their informal networks function and manage them to drive change, fuel innovation and develop talent. This series of six webinars will provide you with foundational skills in designing, conducting and managing organizational network analyses. Instructors will share models, techniques, and success factors honed from years of experience across a wide range of practical, business-driven applications.

The sessions include how to manage an ONA to maximize business impact; how to choose the best approach for data capture from both survey and social media-based options; designing effective instruments for data capture; generating visual and quantitative analytics; running predictive analytics from network data, and communicating network insights to stakeholders. Also included is step-by-instruction on how to use three of the leading network analysis software packages: UciNet, NetDraw, and NodeXL.

Who should attend:

Professionals in People Analytics, Human Resources, or Knowledge Management interested in gaining hands-on capability to conduct all or part of ONA studies.

Professionals with responsibility for overseeing ONA projects who want more in-depth understanding of the process.

Managers interested in exploring network data on their own.

You can attend all six webinars or select those most suited to your needs.

Session 1: Managing an ONA for Business Impact

The first webinar in the “Network Analysis for Business Performance” series provides a complete overview of how to conduct a successful ONA, focusing on how to align your network analysis with business goals. It takes you through a four-stage model, illustrated with case studies and success factors derived from more than two decades of collective ONA experience. It is useful for both non-technical professionals who will be overseeing ONA projects and for analytics professionals who need to ensure the business impact of their studies.

Session 2: Collecting Network Data

Featuring: Andrew Parker, University of Exeter Business School

The second webinar in the “Network Analysis for Business Performance” series provides a detailed description of how to collect organizational network data. Included are ways to structure the network survey around core questions, the key details and parameters that the survey designer needs to consider, options for survey formats, and a wide variety of sample survey questions. The webinar is supplemented by sample surveys and a checklist of survey design and launch items.

Session 3: Network Visualization and Measurement Using NetDraw and Ucinet

Featuring: Andrew Parker, University of Exeter Business School

The third webinar in the “Network Analysis for Business Performance” series starts with instruction on how to use the software package NetDraw to generate network visualizations. It demonstrates how visualizations can be informative in key business contexts such as building collaboration across business units or facilitating post-merger integration, then goes into hands-on instruction on how to generate visualizations in NetDraw. It also covers how to generate network metrics, providing foundational knowledge on basic network analysis terms and measures, and step-by-step instruction on how to generate analytics in the UciNet software package. The session provides learners with practice sets that they can use to experiment with NetDraw and Ucinet on their own.

Session 4: Predictive Analytics with Network Data

Featuring: Inga Carboni, William & Mary School of Business

The fourth webinar in the “Network Analysis for Business Performance” series explores specific ways that predictive analytics can increase the impact of organizational network data on business results, including employee engagement, innovation, turnover, and the management of diversity and inclusion. Practical examples are provided to demonstrate how network data can be used to test ideas and generate actionable findings. The session provides learners with step-by-step instruction on how to conduct two of the most common types of inferential tests, as well as an overview of advanced predictive tools in Ucinet.

Session 5: Analyzing Technology-mediated Networks using NodeXL

Featuring: Sal Parise, Babson College

In the fifth webinar of the “Network Analysis for Business Performance” series, we explain the importance of technology mediated networks in a workplace that is defined by both face-to-face and digital interactions, and provides instruction on how to study digital networks using the software package NodeXL. Case studies from major corporations are shared, illustrating analyses of email, Twitter, and Facebook networks, and showing the contributions these analyses make to brand advocacy, building product engagement, and to building more innovative personal networks.

The wrap-up to the “Network Analysis for Business Performance” series brings together five top ONA experts to share their experiences and answer some of the more challenging questions about how to implement ONA. Learners benefit from the variety of opinions and the group dialogue on topics such as communicating about ONA, measuring business impact, and making complex ONA findings easily consumable, as well as the opportunity to pose questions how best to implement ONA in their own organizations.

Practice Homework Data Set and Assignment

This data set and assignment is referenced in Andrew Parker’s session and can be used for hands on experience.

Jean Singer

Jean Singer is an organizational consultant specializing in the use of social network principles and techniques to improve performance. She combines 20+ years of experience in the fields of organizational development and business process improvement with the latest tools of network analysis to help companies build better cross-functional collaboration, enhance process efficiency, and create the diverse knowledge-sharing connections needed to foster innovation. Her experience spans diverse industries such as biopharmaceuticals, financial services, high technology, energy, and consumer products. Jean has a particular passion for working with scientific and technical organizations, helping them to create open networks that enable people with diverse backgrounds to collaborate on novel ideas and clear the path to new discoveries and inventions. Jean is a co-editor of The Organizational Network Field Book: Best Practices, Techniques and Exercises to Drive Organizational Innovation and Performance as well as author of a number of articles and book chapters on organizational development, business process improvement and organizational networks.